Who was the first child of a Nobel Prize winner to also win a Nobel not shared with the parent?

Who was the inventor of the computer language COBOL?

Who developed the major drug treatment for leukemia?

Who invented Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests?

Who led the team that developed the Mars Pathfinder rover?

Who discovered the physical basis for DNA as well as the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus?

Here’s a hint … they’re all women.

I’m reading this great book, Teaching the Female Brain – How Girls Learn Math & Science, by Abigail Norfleet James, that I highly recommend to any parent who has a daughter struggling with either subject. It’s a fascinating read on the gender differences and learning processes of the female brain, and how to teach to those differences whether you’re in a single-sex environment or co-ed. I’m reading it because my teenager is struggling with both subjects and so in an effort to help, I’m trying to figure out where the additional support is needed. (And mind you, this could just all blow over by the time I’m done reading the book and we can chalk it up to her being a teenager … but nonetheless …)

It was a great introduction to a well-written book, and a reminder that if you’re a woman and reading this blog, WOMEN ARE FABULOUS!!

Answers:

Marie Curie for physics and chemistry — in fact, she is the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Irene Joliot-Curie for chemistry

Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

Gertrude Belle Elion

Stephanie I. Kwolek

Donna Shirley

Rosalind Franklin – could not share in the Nobel Prize awarded to Watson and Crick because she died of cancer before the prize was awarded and the Nobel is not awarded posthumously.